So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him,7 rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Bible Memory

I stood with sweaty hands trying to remember the verse. It wouldn’t come to me. I didn’t exactly want the bookmark or pencil or whatever incentive I was being offered for remembering the verse. I didn’t want the embarrassment of not knowing either. I looked at my shoes and the teacher pitied me. They gave me clues. Even at a young age I knew that the number of clues I was being given showed that I didn’t know the verse. I blundered through the memory verse, was given a pencil or a bookmark and then sat down hoping I never had to do that again. Of course. I did. Week after week as I went through Sunday School. Memorize, rinse, and repeat.

The verses I remember are few. I can’t recite them verbatim. I had the same problem memorizing lines. I would hear a line from a play and in my own words I would express exactly the same principle. In Bible memory it was the same. I understood the Bible but I couldn’t memorize it. Compare that to the child with the photographic memory who can tell you what a verse says, but who does not understand it. Neither extreme is what would really help a child.

Bloom’s taxonomy says that learning starts with knowing the facts. A child begins their journey towards truly understanding an idea by being able to restate it in the way they received it. They go through stages of putting it into their own words and then synthesizing it with their own understanding of the world. Do you know a Bible curriculum which really does that well? To be able to accept the raw information and be able to recall it we might apply to Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. Children can have multiple ways in which they learn. Some children are musical. Some children are kinesthetic. Some children are logical and mathematical. Some are interpersonal. Some are intrapersonal. And the list keeps expanding. Children are a combination of intelligences in varying measure. We can reach them in multiple ways.

So the question is, “How does the Bible verse listed above become best memorized by you?” Over Labour Day weekend I will be the speaker at Lake Geneva Youth Camp and it will be family camp. We will memorize the above verse. Why don’t you try it? It won’t be for a pencil or bookmark. It’ll be for the goodness that it grows in your own soul.

Questions

How would you memorize the above verse?

Will you do it?

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About Plymothian

I teach at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. My interests include education, biblical studies, and spiritual formation. I have been married to Kelli since 1998 and we have two children, Daryl and Amelia. For recreation I like to run, play soccer, play board games, read and travel.

17 Responses to Colossians 2:6,7 Bible Memory

I think I would learn this verse partially by using imagery. The words that really stuck out to me in the passage as being easy to remember were “rooted” and “overflowing.” It makes me think of a plant being rooted in the ground and also gives me the image of watering it to overflowing. I think this would be a good place to helping to remember the passage.

I memorize by repeating the various phrases of a verse over and over again. I picture the words in my mind and visualize what they mean
Then, I put the phrases all together. And yes, I will memorize it. 🙂

I memorize best by repetition and by reproducing, whether by writing or by speaking. I think about how the different clauses fit together to make the sentence mean exactly what it says. I’ll set aside some time to rewrite it a few times, and I am going to put a card with the verse in a place where I will remember to read it regularly.

I would read it multiple times. And while reading it make it have meaning to me. Like, “how does this apply to my life?”. Still, I would use the charlottes Mason method of memorization. That tactic seemed to help me greatly.

I would first keep reading the verse a couple times until it makes sense to me. I will try to meditate on it first and try to see what the author really meant to say to me through the verse. Then, I will read it out loud until I remember from deep inside my heart.

I would choose the first few words (up to the first comma or something), and repeat them a few times. Then add on with a few more words, which I repeat. Then so forth until I can repeat the whole verse 3 times without messing up.